Jamboree Tales - Day 3

Do the Right Thing

During the last century there lived a poor farmer in Scotland
who was out working his fields when he heard a cry for help. He went to
where the plea for help was coming from and found a boy caught and sinking
in a bog. He worked his way through the bog and with the aid of a staff
was able to free the boy. After doing so the farmer went back to work
in his fields and didn't think anymore about it. The next day a fine horsedrawn
carriage pulled up in front of the farmers hut. Out of it stepped a well
dressed nobleman who was the father of the boy the farmer had rescued
the day before. The grateful father wanted to reward the farmer for rescuing
his son but the farmer, as desperately poor as he was, would not accept
money for helping someone in need. The nobleman still wanted to reward
the farmer for saving his son and was trying to think of some way to do
so when the farmer's own son came to the doorway of the hut. Seeing him
the nobleman then made this proposition to the farmer; let him take the
boy and he would educate him. The farmer hesitated at first but then finally
agreed. Through the education that the farmer's son received he became
a scientist. The boy grew up to be Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer
of penicillin. A number of years after, the noblemans own son was stricken
with pnemonia which was a death sentence before penicillin. The nobleman's
son that was saved was Sir Winston Churchill.

Each of us as we live our lives will have opportunities
to help people and will have to make moral decisions like the poor scottish
farmer did. As badly as he needed money, his personal code that he lived
by would not allow him to accept money for helping someone else in need.
If he would have taken the money his son would not have received an education
and the world would not have penicillin which has saved tens of millions
of lives not to mention the life of Winston Churchill who led England
through the darkest days of World War II against Nazi Germany. The Scottish
farmer died without ever knowing that one small moral decision he made
changed the world and saved millions of lives. As you live your life neve
underestimate the power of doing the right thing. Goodnight gentlemen.

Editor's note: This series is presented exactly as it was given at the 1997 National Jamboree. Subsequently, we have learned that historians dispute whether the events described in the story actually took place. Whether or not the story is true, the lesson suggested by the story is a good one. When we help somebody else, that same person may later be the very person that helps us in a tough spot.

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